


Boats and Birds and Little Girls

by haraya



Series: Give Me Some Sunshine, Give Me Some Rain [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Circle Tower Life, F/M, Mages and Templars, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 03:23:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5359286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haraya/pseuds/haraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Circle Tower casts a long, long shadow on the girl who would become the Hero of Ferelden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boats and Birds and Little Girls

She remembers: a hot day during her fifth summer, reading on the balcony, spilling a glass of juice.   
  
And she remembers: panic, fumbling, _freezing_ , and then a flurry of ice falling on the pages of her open book.   
  
She remembers her mother's face, stricken, her words already resigned. "Not again."  
  
She remembers Mommy and Daddy fighting: _"All her brothers are in the Gallows already, she'll be fine there,"_ and, _"No, not there, not my little girl,"_ and then, _"What do you want to do, Revka? Hide an_ apostate _?"_ Daddy spits out the last word like it was one of the burnt cookies she made him.   
  
She remembers Mommy saying, "We could write to Leandra."  
  
She remembers more fighting, extending late into the night.   
  
She remembers a ship (dark), a port (noisy), a tall raven-haired man with amber eyes (kind).  
  
She remembers her mother leaving her on that port in Gwaren, sailing back to Kirkwall with only a single teary-eyed glance backwards.   
  
Solona recounts these memories as she travels with the man, who asks her to call him Uncle Malcolm.   
  
("Are you really my uncle?" she asks, and he smiles and ruffles her hair affectionately and says, "If you'd like," and that's that.)  
  
They travel for _forever_ , but Solona doesn't mind - there are wide open fields and roaring rivers and _trees_. Kirkwall doesn't have trees; none that she remembers.   
  
And the best part are the nights, because Uncle Malcolm makes a fire with a snap of his fingers, and doesn't get angry when Solona puts it out with a little flurry of ice, only smiles proudly at her and ruffles her hair.   
  
"The templars will tell you that _'Magic is meant to serve man, never to rule over him,_ ’ " he tells her, his amber eyes hard in the flickering firelight. "But remember, Solona, that _you_ rule over your magic, and that it must serve the best in _you_."  
  
Solona doesn't quite understand, only knows that she has magic, and that she is scary and dangerous, only she doesn't _feel_ scary and dangerous, but Daddy said so, so it must be true.   
  
Uncle Malcolm makes her promise to keep his magic a secret, because he's hiding from the people he calls templars who want to hurt him.   
  
"Like a game?" she asks, as they walk toward a very tall tower on the horizon.   
  
"Of a sort," he says. "But with higher stakes."  
  
She asks him why she can't hide with him. She is very good at hide-and-seek. He laughs and says, "What will Leandra say? _'Maker, Malcolm,_ another _firestarter?_ ' "  
  
Solona huffs, miffed. "I'm _not_ a firestarter," she says, and freezes a puddle they pass by to make her point.   
  
Uncle Malcolm laughs and ruffles her hair and tells her how clever she is.   
  
They walk in silence for a bit before she asks, "Will the templars want to hurt _me?_ "  
  
Uncle Malcolm stops in the middle of the road. He looks down at Solona like he's afraid, but that's silly, because Uncle Malcolm can fight _bears_ while laughing and he's _never_ afraid.   
  
"They will try," he says at last. "But you are strong, and clever. You will find your way, Solona."  
  
She nods and says, "Okay," and they start walking again and she asks to ride on his shoulders so she can see a squirrel hopping on a low branch.   
  
Uncle Malcolm leaves her with a boatman on the shore of a lake. He hugs her before she goes (not like Daddy, who wouldn't look at her when she Mommy left the estate).  
  
"Do you want to know a secret?" he asks her, and his beard tickles her cheek when she nods. He pulls away and looks at her very seriously.   
  
"You are as the Maker made you, Solona. If you will remember nothing else, remember this. You are as the Maker made you."  
  
She nods. "Okay."  
  
She gets into the little boat and waves until Uncle Malcolm is a tiny speck on the shore, looking after the wake of the boat, a watchful sentinel ensuring her safe passage.   
  
\---  
  
The Circle Tower is very circular, all rounded corridors and twisting stairs. The men in armor - the templars - are quiet and a little scary, but Solona is a brave girl and tells them nothing of the tall, dark-haired man who brought her here.   
  
The mages are nicer. Senior Enchanter Irving is very kind, and is very pleased when she shows him her trick with the ice, and tells her that she will be his apprentice.   
  
"You'll teach me ice magic?" she asks.   
  
"Among other things," Irving replies.   
  
Excitedly, "Can I see?" and Irving laughs and sits her in his lap as he summons lightning all around them, while Solona sits wondering and wide-eyed in the eye of the storm.   
  
\---  
  
Soft-slippered feet slapping on the flagstones. Two little girls round the corner and duck into an alcove as a dark-haired little boy runs past, his unruly hair quite literally standing on end as sparks of static occasionally fly from the tips.   
  
Neria and Solona try and fail miserably to stifle their laughter, and when Jowan turns and sees them, they take off running again. They hear him catching up to them.   
  
"I'll get the both of you for this!"  
  
Neria and Solona duck into a room and slam the door, leaning against it breathlessly and grinning. There's the sound of someone clearing their throat, and their heads whip around, the two girls stepping forward sheepishly as they meet Senior Enchanter Irving's reprimanding gaze.   
  
Which is just as well, as at that moment, Jowan throws open the door. "I'll--" but he stops dead and adopts the same sheepish expression of his friends as Irving turns his gaze at him.   
  
"Jowan, Neria," Irving begins solemnly. "You have lessons with Enchanter Uldred, do you not?"  
  
"Yes, Senior Enchanter," the two recite in unison.   
  
"Run along then. Uldred does not like his apprentices to keep him waiting."  
  
Jowan and Neria practically trip over each other in their haste to get out. They throw pitying glances at Solona as they pull the door shut behind them. She braces herself. Sure enough--  
  
"Solona."  
  
Solona takes a deep breath as she crosses over to where Irving sits behind his desk. He looks reprovingly at her and she flinches, but then she sees his cheeks tensing into a smile before he bursts out into loud guffaws.   
  
He pulls his apprentice into his lap (she's seven and getting a little too big for this, but he doesn't seem to mind) and rests his hand just above her shoulder blades, smiling at her. Tentatively, Solona starts to smile back, until--  
  
_Zap!_  
  
Solona jumps a little as Irving sends a little spark of lighting down her spine. The older mage starts laughing uncontrollably, which confuses Solona until she reaches up to pat her hair, the strands standing up every which way.   
  
Master and apprentice then laugh together, her high tinkling giggle merging with his full, round bellows, and they playfully start shocking each other, the lesson for the day completely forgotten.   
  
\---

Solona is studying with Finn in the library when Neria appears from behind a bookshelf and makes her way toward their table. At fourteen, Neria is starting to grow into her body, settling into sleek limbs and catlike grace. Solona, well-- not so much. 

"Have you heard?" the elf asks as she drags a chair over and wedges herself into the little space between them, displacing Finn. "The templars have brought back Anders!"  
  
Finn quietly excuses himself, and Solona throws him an apologetic look before she turns back and smiles exasperatedly at Neria. "We were studying, you know. He was helping me with my Creation spells."  
  
"You ought to stick to Primal spells. You're better at those anyway. And don't tell me it was Jowan who switched the ice and fire runes in the templars' washrooms last week. I know that was you."  
  
Solona makes a sound of protest but the elf waves it off flippantly. "Anyway," Neria continues. "This is important news!"  
  
Solona laughs. "Alright, alright. This is, what, his fourth attempt now? What did Anders try this time?"

"Swam across the lake during exercises. That was a week ago."  
  
"His methods are getting desperate," Solona comments. "I _do_ wonder what you see in him, Neria."  
  
The elf girl laughs. "Determination is a fine quality in a man. And he must be very fit, don't you think, to have been able to pull that off?"  
  
The two of them hide their grins behind musty tomes, young girls giggling at new feelings and new distractions, until the bells chime and they make their way toward Senior Enchanter Wynne's Creation class. Jowan catches up to them as they exit the library. At fourteen he is still lanky, all long limbs and awkward angles. The girls tease him and he jibes back, and everything is predictable and right and safe.    
  
\---  
  
The new templar recruits always arrive in the fall. Solona is eighteen now, with barely a trace of the Kirkwall accent in her voice, ready to take on the world.  

It's a season of change: there are two new apprentices, both under six - she wonders if they'll remember anything other than the Tower when they're older. A number of the older apprentices find their areas of expertise: Finn, sweet boy that he is, takes up healing with enthusiasm; Neria's penchant for tricks and troublemaking makes her quite adept at hexes, and Solona herself focuses on Primal spells. Jowan has not yet found his niche, despite having been at the Tower longer than any of them, and this rankles him and makes him sullen. And Anders has been released from his year of solitary confinement: pallid, thin, and absolutely covered in - are those _cat scratches?_

It is the beginning of the end.   
  
The new recruits are all green, still helmless, still _human_. Solona bumps straight into one as she turns the corner of a shelf in the library and drops her books.   
  
She expects a shout, a reprimand, perhaps some righteous smiting, but the young templar merely looks from her face to the books on the floor and bends slowly to gather them up. She stares in uncomprehending astonishment when he hands them back to her, the heavy spell tomes on the bottom and the thin little booklet on _A Brief History of Kirkwall_ on the very top.   
  
She takes her books and mutters a sharp little thank you before she flees, confused and curious in equal measure.   
  
\---  
  
Neria's head pops out from the overhead bunk. The elf peers at her and clambers down to join her in her bed.   
  
They snuggle together under the blankets, a soft magelight illuminating the pages of Solona’s open book.   
  
"Kirkwall again?" the elf asks. Solona thumbs the pages and stares at an illustration of the harbor, with the weeping statues and the great chains and the towering cliffs carved with magic. On some nights she can hear the sound of the surf and the cries of the seagulls as she wanders the Fade, but sometimes...  
  
"I don't remember anymore," she says sadly. Neria hugs her tightly under the blankets.   
  
"Green," the elf girl says. "That's all I remember. Endless green. They say I was from a clan in the Dales, but..." She shudders, and Solona pulls her friend close.   
  
"I've read books," Neria continues. "I can tell you every species of herb that grows in the Emerald Graves but I can't--" the elf buries her face in Solona's shoulder and she rocks them to and fro, describing the white stone and the blue sea of the City of Chains as they drift off to sleep.   
  
\---  
  
"What's in Kirkwall?"  
  
The gentle voice snaps her out of her reverie as she scans the shelves. She looks for the source of the voice and spots the templar from the other day standing at attention at the end of the aisle.   
  
"What?" she says, softly, in case she's just hearing things, which she _must_ be because she is a _mage_ and he is a _templar_ and mages and templars _don't_ \--  
  
"What's in Kirkwall?"  
  
She stands dumbfounded, one hand still poised to reach for a book. She decides to comply, in case this is some kind of test.   
  
"Chains," she says abruptly. "And, um, seagulls. There were seagulls in the harbor." She pauses. "But there were mostly pigeons in the city." Another pause. She remembers: "They made this delightful noise--"  
  
The templar _croos_ softly, exactly like a pigeon, and the sound stirs up old, old, memories and new feelings inside her.   
  
"How did you--" she asks, and the templar inclines his head toward her a little, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth.   
  
"There were a lot of pigeons where I grew up," he says, so gentle, so _human_.   
  
"Where is that?" she ventures, as he turns to face forward once more.  
  
"Honnleath," he replies. She pauses, considering.   
  
"Can you do it again?" she asks timidly.  
  
He does.   
  
"Thank you," she breathes, and when he nods minutely she takes it as a sign to leave, her heart beating wildly in her chest.   
  
\---  
  
She tries to focus as she meets with -now First Enchanter- Irving, tries to concentrate on the blocky text of the tome they are studying today.   
  
Irving is old, but he is astute as ever, and he puts away the heavy tome and smiles kindly at her.   
  
"Is something the matter, child?" he asks. Solona wants to wave it away, but Irving has known her since she was five and she has never been able to lie to him.   
  
She cannot bring herself to ask him the questions that bother her most, however, so instead she asks, "Do you remember anything from before you were brought to the Tower?"  
  
Irving pauses, scrutinizing her face, and she tries not to blush under the weight of his stare and the memory of a templar's soft _croo_.   
  
"I was very young," Irving finally says, smiling sadly. "Younger than you when you came. I have only fragments, images. I filled up the blank spaces by reading about them."  
  
"But what do you remember?" she presses.   
  
The old enchanter closes his eyes and whispers softly, "Snow."  
  
"Ice?" Solona asks, summoning a little bit of it in the palm of her hand.   
  
"No," Irving says, opening his eyes. " _Snow_ ," he says, and makes a perfect little snowflake in between his cupped hands. Solona is mesmerized, fingering the little crystal.   
  
"I went outside when it was snowing. I caught them on my tongue," Irving tells her. "It was very cold. I summoned a little flame to warm my hands. The next day the templars came."  
  
She turns this information over in her mind. "Do you miss it?" she asks, glancing up at her mentor. Irving waves the little snowflake away and gives her a serious look.   
  
"This is our home, Solona," he says gravely, but she thinks she sees a glimmer of hollowness in his old, old eyes.   
  
She nods, and rises, and takes her leave. She is almost out the door when Irving calls her name softly. She turns back to him, but he is leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed.   
  
"Yes," he says. "I miss it." she stays to hear more, but Irving does not open his eyes or say anything else, and she leaves him as he turns over a little snowflake in the palm of his hand.   
  
\---  
  
That night Solona is almost asleep when Neria's whisper rouses her.   
  
"Is something wrong?" she asks, as the elf clambers into her bed and hugs her fiercely. Solona wraps her arms around the other girl and murmurs soothingly into her hair.   
  
"They've taken Anders for his Harrowing," Neria says, clinging tighter to her friend. 

This surprises her. "But he's just got back from solitary confinement," she says, confused.   
  
Neria shrugs, just as confused and twice as worried.

"Is that why he was making such a fuss about templar mishandling?" Solona tries to joke. It works, just barely, a small smile tugging up the corner of Neria's mouth.   
  
"Yes. He was squawking like a bird when they brought him away," the elf giggles softly. An idea comes over Solona and she _croos,_ rather inexpertly, but Neria sighs and closes her eyes all the same.   
  
"Where did you learn that?"  
  
"It's a pigeon," she says instead, crooing again softly.   
  
Neria sighs again, and her face scrunches up as if in thought. She purses her lips and whistles softly.   
  
(A memory: riding on the shoulders of a man that gives her the world; peering over the mop of his raven hair as he points out a twittering bird in the trees. " _Starling_ ," he says, whistling in response to the bird's shrill note.)  
  
The two girls burrow under the covers as they wait out the night, lost in memories of birdsong and trees and endlessly wide blue skies.   
  
\---  
  
Anders comes back none the worse for wear, and she and Neria and Jowan pepper him with endless questions as he gathers his things to move to the Mages' quarters.   
  
He sniffs and turns his nose up and smiles smugly at them, and they pull playfully at his hair and his robes until all his neatly gathered things fall to the floor and they have to pack them up all over again.   
  
Anders is a full mage now, and can go where he will for the most part, but he still deigns to sit with his lowly apprentice friends during supper amidst dramatic sighs and eye-rolling.   
  
The days are growing colder, or so the templars say. Solona wouldn't know. Inside the Tower it is always warm and close and safe.   
  
But Solona doesn't _feel_ safe as she turns into an aisle and spots a familiar mop of curly blond hair at the end of the shelves. She feels jumpy, wired. She remembers the storm Irving showed her when she first came to the Tower and thinks she feels the ghost of that lightning crawling over her skin.   
  
But Solona is a brave girl (Uncle Malcolm said so), and she gathers up all her courage as she reaches the end of the aisle.   
  
"Have you ever seen snow?"  
  
The templar startles but relaxes when he sees her. "Oh, hello," he says. Then he smiles tentatively and says, "You're joking, right? Who in Ferelden _hasn't_ seen snow?"  
  
"Mages," she replies flatly, fixing a stare at him.   
  
"Well, that's--" the templar stutters. "I didn't-- I meant-- _Maker's breath_ ," he huffs, and Solona is utterly _fascinated_ because the templar is _blushing_.   
  
Solona stares for a bit more before she decides to put him out of his misery. "I was only curious," she says. "Have you?"  
  
And he tells her (quietly, constantly glancing around for anyone who might hear) about lakes freezing over completely, and skating, and siblings flinging snowballs into your face. She listens, enraptured, and smiles delightedly at him when he's finished.   
  
"Thank you..." she says, cocking an eyebrow at him questioningly.   
  
He stares back, uncomprehending, until, "Oh. C-Cullen," he says, blushing. "My name is Cullen."  
  
"Thank you, Cullen," she says, smiling at him before turning on her heel and leaving, trying in vain to ignore the little thrill that ran through her when she said his name.   
  
\---  
  
At supper Solona is distracted. Beside her, Anders and Neria tease Jowan about a girl named Lily. (There are no mages by that name, they know. They think he's made it up.)  
  
She smiles and laughs half-heartedly at their jibes, but her mind is far away, across a sea that has frozen over where she skates in between tall, claustrophobic cliffs, searching for open spaces and freedom, while her hand stirs with her spoon and absentmindedly spells a templar's name into her cooling porridge.   
  
\---

Irving sets a grueling pace for her, pushing her to her limits, preparing her for so many different things that she does not see the logic behind them, does not understand how _this_ could fit into the Harrowing, or _this_ , or _this_.   
  
He takes pity on her when a fire spell goes awry, dousing it with his own flash of ice before letting her off early, sending her to the healers to have her hand checked.   
  
She ducks into the small room that smells pleasantly like honey and elfroot, and sits patiently when Finn hovers his hand over hers, checking for any injury, Wynne hovering behind his shoulder and prodding her apprentice for his diagnosis.   
  
He declares her mostly sound; only the outermost skin of her hand had taken any damage. Wynne nods approvingly and lets her apprentice wash a weak healing spell on Solona's hand before they send her off with smiles and admonitions to be more careful.   
  
Solona finds herself with suddenly a whole afternoon free and nothing to fill it with, so for lack of anything else to do she makes her way to the library. She's not in any mood to study; simply wanders between shelves until she almost trips across a group of children huddled over a book. They look up, caught, but she smiles reassuringly before sinking down to the floor beside them.   
  
They're looking at the _Ornithological Compendium_ , filled with detailed illustrations of hundreds and hundreds of species of birds. She pulls the heavy book onto her lap as the young apprentices huddle around her.   
  
"Marches Seagull," she reads aloud, smiling as she traces the delicate plumage on the illustration. She's startled when one of the children - the older boy - softly squawks, and the other boy and girl laugh, and Solona laughs along with them.  
  
"Ostwick," the older boy says shyly.   
  
She smiles at him, points to herself and answers, "Kirkwall." the boy lets out a little delighted gasp of surprise and presses closer to her side.   
  
She turns to the next page. "Barn Owl," she reads, and the young girl hoots softly, eliciting giggles from the rest of them. And then she turns the page again and frowns.   
  
"Rock Pigeon," she says slowly, and there is silence until--  
  
_Croo_.   
  
She turns to see the glint of armor as Cullen rounds a bookshelf, seemingly ignoring the huddled apprentices as he continues along on his patrol.   
  
She tries and fails to suppress a smile as she continues turning the pages.   
  
Solona does not know how long they stay curled up on the floor, but when the younger boy and girl slump against her asleep and the older boy starts nodding off she notices how late it has gotten, and she purses her lip as she contemplates how to bring them back to the dormitories.   
  
And then she hears the soft clanking of armor and watches in quiet amazement as Cullen bends down to scoop the girl into his arms, deftly balancing her on his hip and making it look ridiculously easy in heavy armor.   
  
He smiles shyly at her and looks pointedly back at the younger boy, and she moves to pick him up, struggling a little with his weight until Cullen places a hand on the boy's rump and lifts him enough for her to adjust her hold comfortably around him. Cullen smiles at her again, and she hopes he does not notice her blush in the dim light. Then he rouses the older boy and takes his hand as he leads all of them back to the Apprentices' quarters.   
  
They must seem a strange sight, a mage and a templar walking together with several children in tow, and she almost laughs at the absurdity of it all. But she doesn't, because there are other templars standing stone-still in the corridors. She feels their gazes boring into her but she ignores them as she always has.   
  
Except for the one.   
  
She watches Cullen walk resolutely past his comrades, his face passive until they turn into the separate dormitories for the youngest apprentices.   
  
Solona watches, fascinated, as Cullen gently tucks the girl into bed before helping the other boy into his bunk.   
  
She's never known a templar could be so gentle, especially toward a mage, of all things.   
  
He catches her gaze and smiles, leaving her dumbstruck, and she's confused when he chuckles quietly. He points to her arms, and she notices she's still holding the youngest apprentice and moves quickly to set him down in his bed.   
  
The young boy stirs, and she freezes, unsure, until Cullen runs his hand over the boy's hair, murmuring soothingly, sending the child back to sleep.   
  
She stares at the back of his head as he escorts her to the Senior Apprentices' dormitories. There are so many thoughts clamoring for dominance in her head, feelings arising and preconceptions shattering, all bubbling over and threatening to spill.   
  
She almost runs straight into Cullen's back when he stops at the right door. He turns to her and nods, like a proper templar should, but it's not as dismissive and more gentle than it ought to be, and without thinking she reaches out to grasp his hand. He freezes at the contact.   
  
"Thank you," she says quietly. He looks warily from her face to their joined hands, and for a moment she's horrified that she's broken some rule, some taboo.   
  
And she _has_ , hasn't she, because mages and templars _don't_ \--  
  
But Cullen merely squeezes her hand once and bids her a quiet goodnight before he leaves her at the door, and she wonders at the ache she feels in her chest and her empty fingers as she watches his retreating form.   
  
\---  
  
She's late for breakfast the next morning, and Jowan teases her for it.   
  
"Not even Harrowed yet and already slacking off? For shame, Solona," he says, grinning, and in retaliation she flicks her fingers and laughs when Jowan yelps at the tiny spark from his metal fork.   
  
"I think it's a boy," Neria pipes up. "She was smiling in her sleep this morning before I left."  
  
"Ooh," Anders says. "It's Finn, isn't it? I heard all about your little _incident_ from Wynne, you sly minx."  
  
She blushes but says nothing, lets them form their own conclusions, because she doesn't know how to explain _Cullen_ and _pigeons_ and _mages and templars maybe_ do--

\---

Anders tries to escape again, and this time he succeeds.   
  
With his phylactery in Denerim, the templar hunters had to make a detour, which gave him precious time to put a few more leagues between himself and his pursuers.   
  
Anders had, apparently, snuck into the templars' quarters, stole a set of armor, and simply walked out the door. The templar posted at the door, Carroll, had already been suitably chastised.   
  
There was, however, the matter of the accomplice.   
  
Carroll had, under questioning, admitted to having accepted cookies from one of the apprentices, and briefly speaking with her while the breakout was supposedly taking place.   
  
There was to be a punishment, of course. The official charges were ‘bribery, theft, and corrupting the moral integrity of a templar,’ which were pretty heavy by Greagoir’s standards. Solona imagined solitary confinement, or being denied dinner, or, Maker forbid, Aeonar.   
  
She had not imagined _this_.   
  
Solona watches in horror as the templars drag Neria kicking and screaming out of the Apprentices' quarters. She follows along helplessly with Jowan hot on her heels as the templars drag Neria up what seem like endless flights of stairs. Finally they come to the Harrowing Chamber, and panic rises in Solona because _no, no, don’t-- she’s not ready!_ but the two friends can only watch in horror as the door closes shut behind the elf with an ominous clang.   
  
\---  
  
Neria Surana does not return from her Harrowing.   
  
Solona hears the templars whispering in the dining hall during supper. _Too proud_ , one says, and, _Mages; what did you expect?_ says another.   
  
She wants to jump up, scream, cry. She wants to defend her friend, or the memory of her, wants to say, _Of_ course _, what_ else _did you expect? She wasn't_ ready _\--_  
  
But Jowan's hand clamps down on her arm to restrain her, even though tears rim his own eyes as he quietly pushes his food around his plate.    
  
She looks away from the templars, eats her dinner without tasting it, and tries not to think about how quiet it is with only two people at the table.   
  
After supper, she and Jowan make their way back to the dormitories quietly.  When they reach the safety of the Apprentices' quarters, Jowan grips her arm gently.   
  
"Solona--" he starts, but she pulls away, not wanting to talk, and hides underneath her blanket for the rest of the night.   
  
\---  
  
Some days later, she wanders into a familiar part of the library without really meaning to. Cullen is there, standing at attention, and he looks mournful when he sees her.   
  
"O-oh, hello. I-I'm sorry about your friend," he says. "Senior Enchanter Uldred h-had high hopes for her. He was thinking about bringing her with him to O-ostagar, or so I heard."  
  
Solona is not going to cry, not in front of a templar, not even if he has kind eyes and stutters terribly and croos like a pigeon for her when she asks. She steels herself and asks: "Do you know what happened?"  
  
He looks around nervously, extremely uncomfortable, before finally saying, "I-- We're not supposed to tell you." He grimaces. “If it’s any consolation, it wasn’t so bad a punishment. At least she had a chance to, to--"

_Escape Tranquility?_

_Keep her soul?_

_Prove she wasn’t a_ monster _?_

Solona doesn’t say anything, because it _isn’t_ any consolation, and she’s _not_ going to cry.

"I'm... sorry," he finishes lamely.   
  
Oh, but he _does_ look sorry, and Solona is _not_ _going to cry_ , but her magic flares and fluctuates around her, and Cullen shifts from foot to foot, uncomfortable.   
  
"Apprentice Amell--," he says, trying for authoritative but managing only to sound like a young, pleading boy.   
  
"Solona," she interrupts him. "My name is Solona."  
  
"Solona," he whispers quietly, and something about the way he says his name calms her, tempers the magic under her skin that had been flaring out of control, replacing it with something warmer and lighter.   
  
Solona is a strong girl (Uncle Malcolm said so) and she is not going to cry, so instead she closes her eyes and asks, "Do you know what starlings sound like?"  
  
He whistles, low and soft and sweet.    
  
Solona stands there between the shelves, eyes closed, hands clenched into fists, as her templar stands guard over her grief.   
  
The memory of an elf girl slides into a secret space in her heart, never to be forgotten, but opening up new space for new memories of candlelit libraries and a templar's soft whistle.   
  
\---  
  
The next few weeks are a flurry of activity. The delegation to Ostagar packs up to leave - Uldred and Wynne and a few other mages, a couple of lucky apprentices, and of course, a dozen templars, armor polished and swords at the ready.   
  
Solona and Jowan watch silently as the group leaves. Their shared grief has brought them closer, but Neria's death has also introduced new tension between them, as Solona throws herself more and more into her studies with Irving and Jowan keeps disappearing more frequently to meet with his 'Lily.'  
  
Quite frankly, he worries her, but in between her classes and her lessons with Irving and her increasingly frequent trips to the library (ostensibly in preparation for her own Harrowing, but she knows in her heart that's not true) there's little time to bully Jowan into revealing his mystery girl.   
  
"Have you ever seen a lily?" she asks Cullen one day, as she searches for a Primal spellbook Irving had asked her to fetch.   
  
"As in… the flower?" he asks, wide-eyed and adorably flushed. She dithers on asking him about the girl, but decides against it.   
  
"Yes."  
  
"Oh. Er, yes? There're lots of different kinds, though," he replies. "Which, um, which one were you referring to?"  
  
She shrugs, fingers skimming over the spines of books on the shelf. "Whichever one you liked, I suppose."  
  
He tells her of the lake in Honnleath, a calm blue mirror dotted with clumps of water lilies, tells her about sweet scents drifting on a cool spring wind.   
  
He takes a piece of vellum from her, gauntleted hands crumpling and creasing the paper more than he ought, but when he's finished, he places a pale little paper flower in her cupped hands.   
  
"My little sister taught me," he says, blushing, as she fingers the folded water lily in her hands. "She liked roses better, but I always thought that the flowers blooming in the middle of the lake were more beautiful."  
  
He looks straight at her as he says this, red to the tips of his ears, and in return she grants him the first real smile she's had in weeks.   
  
\---  
  
Her Harrowing comes sooner than she'd hoped. She's not surprised, exactly; Irving had been hinting at it for a while now.   
  
What surprises her is Cullen, standing to one side looking ashamed and unable to meet her eyes.   
  
Greagoir's and Irving's warnings wash over her as she stares at the fount. The last thing she sees before her eyes close is Cullen, hands fisted, looking down at his boots, and before the last vestiges of consciousness have left her, she hears Irving's soft voice, pleading: "Come back to us."  
  
\---  
  
She has a vague memory of being carried back to her bed in the Apprentices' quarters, relief evident in the gauntleted hands clutching her a little too tightly.   
  
A soft, shy whisper in a familiar voice: _"You did it."_  
  
She's out again before her head hits the pillow. When she wakes the next morning, Jowan hovering worried over her, she smiles dazedly as she sees a little paper flower next to her pillow.   
  
\---  
  
Lily, as it turns out, is not something Jowan made up. She is, as it also turns out, definitely _not_ a mage.   
  
Jowan pleads with her in the dim candlelight of the chapel. Her first thought is a loud, resounding _no_ , because she remembers Anders and Neria and isn't that _enough_? And, and-- 

And they are _mages_ and the Tower is their _home_ and--  
  
But then Lily takes Jowan's hand, and the image comes to her mind unbidden: walking along the edge of a calm lake, no robes, no armor, and no Tower in sight; just her and Cullen and a gaggle of laughing children, ordinary people in ordinary clothes with ordinary lives, walking in the sunshine as he tucks a white water lily in her hair.   
  
The strength of her wanting hits her full force; she feels winded, the powerful image knocking the breath out of her lungs.

She knows it's foolish, and impossible, but she has never said yes more readily in her life.   
  
\---

It’s almost, _almost_ funny. 

Her best friend is a _blood mage_ and how could Uldred not have spotted what was right under his nose?

But betrayal hangs thick in the air, shining in the eyes of everyone in the room: Greagoir and Irving and Lily, and most painfully, in Cullen's eyes as he stands to one side of the Knight-Commander.   
  
It's in her eyes, too, she's certain, because her _best friend_ is a _blood mage_ and she's going to Aeonar for his weakness, his stubborn _pride_ \--  
  
But then the Warden-Commander is talking, and the next thing she knows, she's packing her meager belongings in a daze, her mind filled with thoughts of _conscription_ and _Ostagar_ and _she's never going to see Cullen again, ever--_  
  
There's a gauntleted fist knocking on her door, a templar come to fetch her, because Duncan is waiting and she's dallied long enough.   
  
It's Cullen, of course. He doesn't look at her as he presses soft cotton into her hands. Bewildered, she shakes it out, the cloth unfurling before her.   
  
"In case you need clothes that aren't robes," he says quietly.   
  
It's a shirt. A _templar_ undershirt, probably, because _mages_ only ever wear robes. It's much too big for her, but Cullen's giving it to her and it's likely the only forgiveness she's ever going to get from him, so she rolls it up and tucks her little paper lilies in it before stowing it in her pack.   
  
Cullen watches her movements quietly, but when she looks up at him, his eyes are bright with unshed tears, and she feels sorry enough not to mention them as he walks her back down to where the Warden is waiting.   
  
And there are no goodbyes, no impassioned embraces, no desperate first-and-last kisses, only a brief brush of his fingers against hers before they round the corner to the entry hall.   
  
She doesn't look back (she shouldn't) and he doesn't call her back (he can't). In what she believes is their last moment together, there are only robes and armor, mages and templars, and the shadow of the Tower looming over them all.   
  
\---  
  
The sun is too bright, the sky too blue, when she walks out of the Tower. The great doors close behind her, and it feels so much more like exile rather than freedom.   
  
The boat is smaller than she remembers, and it rocks dangerously as the Grey Warden helps her inside. She clutches her meager pack of belongings to her chest as the boatman rows them slowly across the lake.   
  
A flock of birds are roosting on the old broken bridge, and she is suddenly overcome with emotions and she _croos_ , loud and sharp.   
  
The pigeons startle and take flight, a flurry of grey wings, crooing all the while.   
  
Solona starts laughing, then crying, rocking slowly back and forth, crooing softly to herself all the way across the lake. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, she ends up happy with Alistair in some future story I may or may not write depending on whether I can get Alistair's voice right. This was supposedly some prologue that got waaaaay out of hand.
> 
> I always wondered how a Human Mage Warden ends up in Ferelden when their family's from Kirkwall. So in case it wasn't clear, her mother (Leandra's cousin) sends her to the Ferelden Circle because it's more lax that the one in Kirkwall.
> 
> So yeah. Comments and constructive crit are welcome! ^_^


End file.
